Many businesses have been affected by Amazon.com, and retailers in particular can offer plenty of examples of how they have struggled in competition with the online steamroller.

For example, on Black Friday, Amazon captured 54.9 percent of online transactions, according to consumer-research company Hitwise, and 45.1 percent on Thanksgiving Day.

That kind of impact is very old news to one segment of retail: booksellers.

After all, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos "said he was going to start by selling books," said Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, a nonprofit trade association dedicated to the promotion of independent bookstores. "We actually taught him everything he knew about selling books."

Teicher was in Columbus a few days ago to help celebrate the first anniversary of Gramercy Books, the decades-long dream of Linda Kass, a Bexley resident, author and advocate of the arts.

Gramercy Books represents part of a resurgence of brick-and-mortar independent bookstores, a niche that seemed doomed just a few years ago.

"There was a lot of disruption starting 25, 30 years ago," Teicher said. "First, there were retailers like Waldenbooks in every mall, then came the big-box stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble, then the mass merchandisers and warehouse clubs, then the internet and e-books.

"Every time, it seemed like some tsunami would wipe out the independent bookseller," he said. "But the willingness of independent retailers to reinvent themselves has been the key. Gramercy is as good an example as anywhere. The shift to online is real, but stores like this can not only survive, they can thrive."

When Amazon burst onto the nascent online-retail scene in 1995, the future already seemed bleak for brick-and-mortar independent bookstores. Amazon only made it worse: Between 1995 and 2000, the number of independent bookstores in the United States plummeted 43 percent, according to the booksellers association.

But eventually something unexpected happened. While competition from Amazon helped force Borders out of business in 2011, independent bookstores began a quiet revival. Between 2009 and 2015, the number of independent booksellers grew 35 percent, to 2,227 stores from 1,651.

"We used to say, from 1960 to 2010 nothing changed in the bookselling business. But in the last six, seven years, a lot has changed," Teicher said.

"Publishers have figured out how to reinvent the business model, both for the public and the retailers," Teicher said. "Publishers have gotten radically better about getting the product to consumers. For instance, 10 years ago, if you couldn't find a book in stock, a retailer would typically say, 'I'll order it and get it to you in two weeks.' Now, there probably isn't a book that Linda can't get in 24 hours."

That kind of service, made possible by technology, is one of the elements contributing to the revival of independent booksellers.

But the key to the stores' success is in the personal, the local, the sense of community.

"The yearning to be in a place, to walk in, talk to someone, to meet friends," Teicher said. "All the digital stuff has only heightened those feelings. You can't just plop these businesses down. Community engagement is the secret sauce."

Kass agrees. Her small shop has hosted more than 75 events during the past year, including many featuring authors with local roots.

Throughout that time, Kass and her colleagues at Gramercy have watched and listened closely, making quick changes to the business when necessary.

For example, "I thought a year ago we would sell periodicals, so we had a large section," Kass said. "But people were not getting periodicals. So very soon — no later than March — we realized that. And by May, we were out."

In similar fashion, "a year ago, we planned to have story time for kids," she said. "Well, the library across the street has a fabulous story time, so we didn't need it."

Like many other booksellers, Gramercy also has seen a surprising revival in travel books and adjusted accordingly.

"People assumed the internet would destroy travel books," Teicher said. "But it turned out 180 degrees wrong. The resurgence in travel books has been huge."

The resurgence of independent bookstores has been so striking that a recent Harvard Business School study sought to find out how other mature organizations and industries confronting technological change could reinvent themselves.

“The theoretical and managerial lessons we can learn from independent bookstores have implications for a wide array of traditional brick-and-mortar businesses facing technological change,” said Ryan Raffaelli, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, in the report. “But this has been an especially fascinating industry to study because indie booksellers provide us with a story of hope.”

In fact, the booksellers association has seen quite a bit of interest from other retail sectors wanting to reinvent their business model.

"We were at a conference with home improvement, hardware, lumber yards," said Dan Cullen, senior strategy officer at the booksellers association. "We wondered why they thought they had anything in common with booksellers. But they kept coming back again and again to making it an experience.

"There was a guy, a second-generation Brooklyn hardware-store owner," Cullen said. "Here he is, in the epicenter of hipsterdom, and at Christmas, he made a point of walking through the store with his father, to emphasize to customers the continuity at the store."

That emphasis on personal, local, authentic interaction with customers is something that all retailers are learning to apply.

"So many stores are just selling commodities," Teicher said. "Gramercy and stores like it are selling an experience. You can buy toilet paper online, you can buy shampoo, you can buy a lot of stuff online. But you can't buy this experience."

tferan@dispatch.com

@timferan

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